


Spend the Night with the Hangman

by PiratePlume



Category: All Elite Wrestling, Being The Elite (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, also theres smut, hangman page cowboy stripper au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-21 13:00:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20693933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PiratePlume/pseuds/PiratePlume
Summary: Belle Foster grew up in a rural farm town but had big aspirations in life.  Leaving home meant breaking up with her childhood sweetheart and the man she believed to be her soulmate, Adam Page.  Five years later she’s been working in New York City and is engaged to a man who is set to one day inherit a multibillion-dollar company.  Belle’s maid-of-honor Jenny decided to surprise her by throwing her a bachelorette party back home, and remembers Belle had a thing for cowboys once upon a time… what Jenny doesn’t realize is Belle only ever had eyes for one cowboy… and what Belle doesn’t know is that very cowboy is about to come into her life again, hired by an innocent, unknowing Jenny to be the entertainment for one wild night…





	Spend the Night with the Hangman

**Author's Note:**

> This fic wouldn't have happened if robwiethoff on tumblr hadn't received an anon ask requesting five headcanons of hangman as a cowboy stripper and gave some answers that exploded my brain and made me so excited I just had to write something for it... not that I expected it to turn out THIS long... but if you enjoy it, remember to give thanks to emmygranger95 for her amazing answers and to the anon who was brave enough to ask!!!

A happy, glee-filled squeal split the air, followed by a suspicious gaggle of giggles from the rest of Belle’s closest girlfriends. She raised a brow but was interrupted from asking what they up to by her best friend and maid of honor, Jenny, grabbing her by the shoulders and steering her firmly away from the window that overlooked the front yard.

“No peeking!” Jenny chided and drove Belle back through the open archway toward the family room, which’d been decorated with streamers, balloons, and confetti bits. A banner strung up on the back wall read in glittery, cursive gold: MISS TO MRS. CHEERS, BITCHES! 

“Put on your sash and sit here,” Jenny commanded. With a firm grip on Belle’s shoulders, she steered her around to a chair that’d been strangely drug to the center of the room, in front of the u-shaped couch, and left alone. Belle was pushed into it and handed the silky white sash which read (also in glittery gold writing): BRIDE TO BE. Jenny had been pressuring Belle to wear the sash any moment she noticed she’d taken it off.

“What’s going on, Jenny?”

Already this bachelorette party was too much. Belle had told Jenny she didn’t want anything. A small night out on the city, maybe. Jenny had taken that for code that Belle wanted it back home in her rural farm town instead of the lively, designer boutique lined Madison Avenue of Upper East Side in New York City, where she now lived. This was the last place Belle wanted to be, especially when her wedding to the set-to-inherit-his-father’s-multibillion-dollar-business-most-wanted-bachelor Jonathan Wright was fast approaching.

“It’s your final surprise of the night, I swear.” Jenny said and reached to fix the sash across Belle’s pretty blue dress. 

“What did I tell you about surprises?”

“Something about how you hate them because you want to know exactly what you’re getting yourself into, so you can calculate all the risks involved and see whether or not it’s worth it,” Jenny spoke fast, not taking a breath, and then exhaled and fixed Belle with a pointed stare. “And probably a bunch of other boring mumbo-jumbo that I decided not to listen to. This is your last night for freedom and I’m tired of seeing you so busy worrying about the risks of living that you won’t even live for just one second.”

Belle just stared. Jenny grinned and gently rubbed her shoulder.

“Anyways, I remember you saying you used to have a thing for cowboys, so I looked around and just so happened to find you, future Mrs. Wright, a cowboy stripper. He comes with great reviews!”

“Jenny! No!” Belle’s face went pale, and then burned hot. 

She’d met Jenny shortly after moving to New York, and while Jenny thought she remembered Belle having a thing for cowboys, she hadn’t remembered it entirely true. Belle had a thing for a cowboy. One. The boy she’d grown up with, who she’d played tag with by the creek; who smeared mud on her and promised her it’d keep the mosquito’s from eating her alive; who’d played all sorts of make believe games until their parents hollered and they’d been forced to split; who’d called her once they got cell phones and kept her up so late, both their eyelids were drooping in class the next day; who’d missed her mouth the first time he’d leaned in to kiss her, too excited, and then blushed bright red with embarrassment until she gently took his face, pulled him in and pressed her lips right against his; who’d made love to her in the bed of his pick-up truck, where he’d laid down enough blankets to qualify for a bed and stolen all the pillows from his house, even the pretty ones his mama would kill him for taking out.

The cowboy with the…

Her friends in attendance were whispering. The front door had opened and closed. They came rushing in, a gaggle of geese, casting grins and winks her way. Someone in another room pushed the button on a stereo, or maybe their phone, and the sounds of men vocalizing an all-too-familiar beat preceded the rip of a guitar and the opening of a song that was half rock, half country. The women all cheered, too familiar and overly delighted that it’d be the first song the handsome cowboy stripped to. At the opening lyrics: Well I walk into the room, passin’ out hundred-dollar bills and it thrills, and it kills…

He walked in with his curly blond hair momentarily tamed by a wide-brim black cowboy hat tugged low; his chest bare, a black vest over his back, unfastened so his thick torso was unobstructed from greedy eyes; tight, black boxer-briefs that hid nothing from the imagination; black and silver chaps hung on a leather belt secured by a large, glittering silver buckle; black cowboy boots; and a black bandanna with white bullet-pattern pulled up to the bridge of his nose.

… blue eyes.

Belle’s widened as they met his, and she didn’t miss how his did, too. They fell down her front, over the sash Jenny had so happily placed across her, and then around the room. He was taking everything in. The last time they’d saw one another, she’d been breaking things off with him and moving far, far away. She was never supposed to be back here. They were never supposed to be back here.

Belle felt like the walls were closing in. 

“Take a breath, tiger,” Jenny leaned on the couch to whisper in her ear, “you look like you’re about to pass out. I know he’s good looking, but…”

But Jenny didn’t understand. It wasn’t only that he was good looking… it wasn’t only that her heart was racing and her body aching, seeing how age had done him more than well… it was him and everything that lay left unsaid between them. Surely, he’d be respectful enough to drop the act, to apologize to the ladies perched on the edge of the couch cushions, waiting for the show. He’d say it was unprofessional of him to dance for someone he used to know, and he’d free her from what was sure to be the most delectable torture she’d ever know.

Those blue eyes stopped surveying the room and landed square on her. She waited for her salvation, for him to take the bandanna from his mouth (or leave it – she wasn’t sure she could handle seeing how handsome age had made his face, too) and excuse himself from the party.

Cause I saddle up my horse and I ride into the city! I make a lot of noise cause the girls they are so pretty…

Big & Rich still crooned from the other room. Belle could have sworn, despite the bandanna, she saw one side of his cheek lift higher than the other as if he was smirking at her. His fingers moved to the edge of the vest and he was quick to tear it from his body, followed by a cacophony of drunken women shouting and hollering with excitement. He moved toward her, closing the distance, that bandanna still hiding half his face from her view, but those blue eyes never once leaving her.

He threw his thick shadow across her, blocking out the light as he leaned over her, profile inches from hers. Her friends made sinful little noises, excited that the hired entertainment was invading Belle’s personal space.

“Congratulations on your engagement, Miss Foster,” he spoke low behind that bandanna, so only she would hear him. His fingers trailed down her arms and the touch was electric. She hated her body for responding, raising gooseflesh wherever he did. 

“Adam,” she barely breathed his name like a plea just loud enough for him to hear. Don’t torment me. Don’t do this.

“Nu-uh,” a low drawl, those baby blues – intense in their color, especially with half his face hidden by his pulled-up bandanna – jumped to her brown eyes. He pulled to full height, either one of those thick thighs, muscled beneath the fat, framed her legs as he hovered over her. She was forced to trail her eyes up his bare chest, fingers twitching at her sides and dying to remember the feeling of touching him, and the expressions he made when she did. Her mouth was dry by the time she was looking up at his face. 

“Tonight, li’l missy,” he drawled, loud enough now for her friends to hear too, “you’re spendin’ the night with the hangman.”

Cheers erupted, and Adam began to move over Belle in time to the beat of his music selections. Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy was an obvious choice, albeit a perfect one, and it was clear he had a planned routine for the entire bit. The attention was all hers, leaving her a speechless, flustered, bright-red mess as he gyrated and turned, giving her ample view of the front and back, as well as her friends enjoying the party.

Eventually he stepped away, but she didn’t have time to be thankful. His back was to her, and she was distracted, looking at the muscles developed there. Working his family ranch had always left him a man built of hard labor, but age had only made what was already great even better, and she could see the strength he had now. He’d always been handsome. Thick. Sturdy. With that back to her, Adam raised his hand and tugged the bandanna down around his throat. A few of her friends’ eyes widened, and shy smiles spread wide.

As handsome as ever, she guessed, even though he hadn’t turned to look at her yet.

Adam pulled the cowboy hat off those blond curls and jerked his head to toss them into disarray, the kind of way that made a woman mad with want to rake her hands through them. Fuck, he knew what he was doing. On the heel of his boot he turned and landed those dangerous eyes on her, and Belle felt her heart stop as heat spread down her body and pooled between her legs. She tried to take a breath, tried to look unaffected, but knew by the glint in his eye that she’d failed.

His steps stalked the small gap he’d put between them, and he placed his hat atop her head. This was different than when they were dating, and he’d gently laid it over her and smiled a big, happy smile when she’d playfully tipped it toward him. The look on his eyes didn’t speak toward anything but what he was doing now – moving his hips and body to show all these women the sort of moves he possessed in the bedroom.

With his hat on her head, Adam dropped in front of her, his round ass out of those chaps for all her friends to squeal and giggle about. Glancing over his shoulder he threw them a grin, and then those wide palms settled firm and heavy on her knees as his attention became all hers again. Her eyes widened. He added pressure to her knees, guiding them apart, and then slid his body in between her thighs. His blond beard rubbed the bare skin of her inner-knee and sent tingles up between her legs, making her adjust her seat and clench her jaw.

A light in his eyes told her he’d done it purposefully. She glared at him. He grinned.

With his fingers splayed, he pressed them along the inside of her thighs and ran them slowly up, as if teasing that he’d sneak them beneath the flirty material of her dress. He slipped them back just as his fingertips brushed her dress hem and settled them for leverage on her thighs. His face ran up her front, between her breasts, just inches from touching her. The material of her dress was thin, and she could feel his hot breath wherever he went. God… this was torture. Wonderful, awful torture.

He stood and reached to grab her hand with his body still moving to the beat – the track had changed as he did his due diligence and paid his undivided attention to the bride-to-be, and now Trace Adkin’s voice crooned: Now she’s comin’ home to visit holdin’ the hand of a wild-eyed boy with a farmer’s tan… - and grinned down his naked front at her. Belle was flush and hot. She knew she must look a picture to her city friends who’d traveled back home with her for this very purpose. They’d never seen Belle look flustered. Belle didn’t let anything get under her skin.

Even her fiancé, Jonathan Wright, had never made her respond like this… but that was the point, wasn’t it? He was safe.

Adam’s thick fingers, calloused with hard work, were gentle but persistent as he guided her touch down his front. The chorus of cheers made him grin ruefully, and he even winked toward the ladies perched on the couch as Belle’s touch ran with too much familiarity down his firm, thick pecs and along the line of his torso. He kept guiding her hand down, and she licked her lips as her eyes dropped and followed its path, making her dizzier and dizzier with desire. She glanced the material of his little black underwear and the obvious lump pressed, stretching it in a bulge. 

He wasn’t going to… put her hand there… was he? 

Belle looked up and met his eyes. God, they were so blue… Was he doing this on purpose? Tormenting her this way? Reminding her how good it was to touch him and showing her how handsome age had made him? Reminding her what it looked like when he was moving over her, touching her, making love to her until she was an exhausted, gratified, quivering mess? Was this some sort of… punishment?

Or was it not that personal, and he was just doing the job he was hired to do?

Adam’s eyes were on hers. His fingers curled a little tighter around her hand, and his nostrils flared as he skimmed her touch along the line of his belt buckle. The other hand grabbed her other, free hand, and joined them so both her hands were on the buckle. He lifted his hands up, leaving hers lingering as if she was in control.

“Your move, little lady.” His rural country accent was even thicker than normal.

Half of her wanted to roll her eyes and break through this confident, cocky attitude he had, telling him and everyone there she still remembered when he was scared of the dark as a kid, and she’d let him borrow her pony nightlight… but the other half wanted to grab him and drag him off right then and there, forget the party, forget her commitments, and forget the last five years that’d left them apart.

“Woooo!” Encouragement from Jenny and the rest of her girls, who were well into their alcohol and had been singing and dancing where they sat on the couch, offering their money to Adam as he entertained. “Strip him!”

“Yeah!”

“Let’s see how hung the hangman is!” A wild chorus of giggles. Adam played into them with charm, giving them another wink and a smile.

Belle knew she should tear her hands away and be done with the whole thing. She looked up his naked front, towering over her, and he dipped his chin to his chest and looked down where she was seated. She tugged, and the belt unbuckled. He grinned, but she saw the initial surprise. He didn’t think she was going to follow-through. Now they were both challenging each other.

Adam stepped back so he could take the chaps off and leave them in an unceremonious pile beside his previously-discarded vest. Belle was still wearing his hat, peering up at him beneath the shadow of the wide-brim, head tilted back. He dipped a hand to hers again, recapturing it enough to pull her up to her feet. Everything he did was smooth and well-practiced. Belle tried to ignore the sudden heat of jealousy, thinking of all the other women who’d gotten to see this routine of his. Since when had Adam begun stripping?

He stood her up and swapped their positions, sitting down in the chair and sliding his free hand to her hip, pushing her around to face him. The hand still holding hers pulled her in, and he quirked his eyebrow – the one that had the little scar running through it – with a triumphant edge to his grin. Did he think he’d won? Did he think she was too embarrassed to give him a lap dance in front of her friends? Did he forget how competitive she was when he challenged her? She wasn’t about to back down now.

Belle pulled her hand out of his and placed it on his shoulder. The other found its perch on the other side, and she dipped her hips and lowered them, straddling him. The country music filled the room and mixed with the supportive cheers of her friends as Belle grinded her hips against his. The floaty material of her dress rucked up her thighs, and she watched Adam’s muscle jump in his cheek beneath his beard as he suddenly clenched his teeth. She swayed, moving her hips the way she remembered he liked, and only then realized how quickly the rest of the world was falling away… even the screams of her friends.

All she could see was the handsome, blond cowboy she was straddling, and all she could feel was his cock, filling, getting hard, rubbing along her panties. She was sure, if they didn’t have the history they’d have, this would be crossing some sort of line. But she knew his body and he knew hers, and it wasn’t hard at all to find her place grinding on his lap, stroking him with the intent to make him lose his composure and shake that cocky attitude he’d had tonight. The gasps and hollers of her friends didn’t embarrass her – Belle could only look down at Adam, leaning back and looking up at her, and grin at the look across his face. He was struggling. How badly did he want to take his hands away from the chair, where his fingers were curled so tightly his knuckles were white, and put them on her?

A stuttered gasp and whispered moan left her in surprise, eyelids fluttering, as the thick head of his cock pressed just right – Adam’s hips had lifted a little in the chair – and skimmed her clit. Their eyes met. Sure, he was struggling… but so was she. His body was responding to hers the same way hers was to his. Kismet. They couldn’t help it. There was too much story. Too much familiarity. Their bodies knew one another like pieces of a puzzle, finally allowed to click together again. Adam risked it, and guided her to grind again, just once more, and this time she had to grit her teeth to keep from moaning as electric tingles spread down between her thighs.

Carefully, he guided her off, and stood. His cock was tucked discreetly, so rather than looking like he had an obvious hard-on, it’d just made his bulge swell even more impressively, and a few of her friends eyed it and elbowed one another before giggling and blushing and whispering dirty things not quietly enough.

Adam turned her around in a spin and slapped his palm against the fatty curve of her ass. It was meant to signal that her turn was up – that he’d treated the bride-to-be the way he should have – but Belle remembered how much he’d loved to feel her ass, and she missed the familiar sting his contact gave it. He plucked his hat off her head and looked at her for a lingering moment. Belle didn’t give him the chance to say something that’d reveal their history to her friends. She moved away, giving careful smiles to her friends who were overcome with excitement by the events that had transpired, and excused herself with some lie about needing water.

It wasn’t a lie entirely. Belle poured herself a glass of ice water and slipped outside, away from the cheers, and stepped out onto the front porch. The wild noise fell to a hush, hidden behind closed doors as she sat on the porch swing and held her glass of cold water over her lap. She couldn’t blame Jenny. Jenny didn’t know about Adam. No one in New York knew about Adam. It wasn’t that Belle was ashamed of Adam… it was just that it was too hard to keep him while moving forward the way she thought she was supposed to.

They’d tried the long-distance thing when she went away to University, but even though that’d only been a state over, they’d struggled. When Belle was offered a position right out of University, he’d been happy for her, until she’d told him that it was in New York City and she didn’t intend to turn it down. His parents needed him to help on the farm and couldn’t make it without him. Life had to go on for the both of them. They’d broke each other’s hearts, and yet Belle still felt like she was to blame. If she could have been happy with a more conventional life, to be Adam’s little wife on his parent’s ranch until he inherited it and it became theirs, they would have been happy. But she wanted to reach for more and she’d thought she would find it in New York.

Still, there were times, more frequently now that her marriage date was fast approaching, that Belle felt a tight pressure of anxiety in her chest and a need to get away from the loud, busy New York streets and back into the quiet nights of her hometown. She was at a crossroads, but she’d put up roadblocks on the path back home and swore she wouldn’t pretend there was a way back. If she was being true to herself, she didn’t want to be in New York like she thought she did, and she didn’t quite click with everyone the way she did with people back home. She’d told Jenny she wanted to stay in New York for her party, but maybe that’s because she’d been afraid of the truth when she finally came out here.

And now that truth was staring her dead in the eyes.

Belle wasn’t certain how long she’d been sitting outside, but her ice had melted in her cup and the condensation on the outside wet the material of her dress by the time the front door opened. She glanced, expecting to see Jenny or one of her other friends, but saw Adam instead. He was carrying his equipment, chaps buckled around his waist and hat in hand along with his vest and bandanna. He blinked when he saw her and stalled in his step. His truck was waiting just down the path out the front yard, and just a mile and a half down the street he’d be back home.

“Is this how you go around town now?” Belle cleared her throat to break the tension that’d swelled between them.

“Huh? Oh,” he glanced down his front and grinned before he shrugged, “I mean, it does better advertising than a billboard would, right?”

Belle rolled her eyes and sighed a breath out of her nose with faint amusement.

“I guess I’m supposed to really say congrats now, huh?” His voice was tight. She looked at him, his eyes were dark, and he gestured at the sash across her front. Belle looked down at it.

“Oh, right.” She plucked the white silk and chewed at her lip. “Thanks.”

“Lucky guy.” He said, and the cushions sighed as he sat quietly down beside her without invitation. He was on the opposite side of the porch swing, leaving a cushion of space between them. Belle tried not to think about how many nights she’d tucked in as close as she could against him, laid her head on his shoulder and talked about anything and nothing for hours as he swung them gently back and forth.

“I don’t know about that.” Belle said.

“What’s that mean?” Adam was watching her. Belle tried (and failed) again not to get distracted by how handsome he’d grown in these last five years.

“Jonathan…” Belle trailed off, suddenly realizing she didn’t know what to say. To the boy who’d always been her best friend she wanted to tell the truth: some days she didn’t even think her fiancé knew she existed. To the first man she’d ever loved she wanted to tell the truth: the way Adam made her feel in that room, preforming a staged strip routine that was mild at best (she’d seen just how raunchy some of those shows could get), was the most alive she’d felt in years. 

To the man whose heart she broke…

“He’s different.” She concluded and looked back at her hands curled around the glass cup.

“Different how?” He wasn’t letting up.

“He just has a lot on his plate. His dad owns about a dozen businesses and has his hands in dozens more, and with Jonathan being his successor, he’s either behind closed doors in meetings all day, flying international to meetings all around the world, or responding to someone off his phone every other second.”

“Sounds lonely.”

“He’s literally talking to people all day, Adam.” Belle frowned at him. “How could he be lonely?”

“I meant you.”

“Oh.”

Quiet. They could hear the soft chirps of the grasshoppers in the tall grass and the flutter of the moth’s wings as they flew around the yellow, glowing porch light.

“Is it?”

Belle swallowed. “Sometimes, I guess.” All these years later and she couldn’t lie to him, especially not when he talked in that sweet, soft voice that beckoned all truth from within. She knew if she looked at those blue eyes and found them gentle and searching, she’d lose all hope of fighting to keep from crawling into his arms.

“Belle…”

“Adam, we shouldn’t talk like this.”

He pushed himself off the swing and it swayed gently. She glanced at his retreating back and watched him collect the things he’d set aside before marching down the porch steps to his pick-up truck. Really? Had that really made him so mad he wasn’t even going to say goodbye? Belle frowned in astonishment at his retreating figure. Was he really that childish?

Adam chucked his things on the bench seat of his pick-up truck and closed the door, but didn’t climb in. He turned around and cocked his head, peering up at her on the porch.

“Come on, Foster. Let’s go for a ride.” He slapped his palm on the bed-frame of his truck. “For old time’s sake.”

She regretted thinking he was going to march off without a goodbye. This was worse. Much worse.

“Adam, I can’t just go with you.” She gestured at the house behind her. “All my friends are here throwing me a bachelorette party, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“Yeah, about that…” He squinted back at the house and then looked at her again, “I actually don’t think they’ll miss you that much. They’re three sheets to the wind and playing ‘pin the penis on the cowboy’ which, by the way, I declined being a live stand-in for once I noticed you’d left.”

“I suppose you expect a thank you for that?”

“I do.” He grinned.

“Do you at least have a shirt and some pants you can put on?” Belle asked, setting her glass aside and walking to the edge of the porch, right before the steps, tilting her head at him.

“I’m afraid I left my change of clothes at home. Like I said, you’re spending the night with the hangman.” He gestured down his front as if showing himself off. Belle knew he didn’t have a pompous ego, but his playful banter as if he did was making her smile despite everything. 

“Please,” Belle snickered.

“Don’t act like you don’t like what you’re lookin’ at, darlin’.” He drew heavy on his accent again, and Belle tried to ignore the way her stomach tightened with want. “I know what I felt when you were grinding on top of me back there.”

“That so? I know what I felt too, cowboy.” Belle shot back before she could stop herself. 

A hungry look flickered briefly across his face.

Belle looked back at the closed door just as an eruption of laughter exploded inside. Adam was right, they were too drunk to worry about her right now. They’d notice in a little bit that she wasn’t around. Belle sighed and pulled her phone out, sending a quick text to Jenny. Met up with an old friend. BBL. Don’t wait up. Belle clicked the send button and descended the steps quickly, surprising Adam, who jumped and moved quick to jog around to the passenger’s side and swing the door open for her. Belle tugged the sash from around her and, wadding it up, chucked it into the yard as if she were simply too lazy to go back and lay it on the porch.

In truth, there was something sort of… satisfying about tossing it away the way she did. Maybe it was that same feeling that’d made her uncomfortable every time Jenny noticed she wasn’t wearing it and made her put it back on.

Belle climbed in and Adam closed the door behind her, moving to the driver’s side and starting the truck up. He’d pushed his things – the hat and the vest – to the floor of the truck and left the bench seat empty between them. Neither of them said anything for a good minute, as if they were afraid to ruin what they’d just agreed to. As if the minute she spoke up, Adam would suddenly pull over, reach and pop the passenger door open and shove her out. Or the minute he spoke up, Belle was going to come to her senses and scream at him to take her back home or face some sort of consequence.

But they couldn’t sit and stew forever.

“So…” Belle glanced over at him and he looked at her. They smiled and looked forward again. “Um… how long have you been… doing…” she glanced again and waved a hand up and down his still practically naked body. “This?”

“Stripping?” He asked casually, as if amused that she was shy about it. “A couple years now. Work slowed down around the farm, my dad sold off about half of it to pay some debt we’d accrued from a bad harvest and we needed a little extra cash. A buddy of mine suggested I look into stripping, since cowboys are always in, and we’re only a forty-five-minute drive outside a city big enough to get clientele for it to be worth it. He owns a business called The Elite, and they do shows around the U.S. He was going to bring me on, but I told him I wanted to try and get a feel for it locally… and I’ve still got to do my fair share helping on the farm, especially with dad getting older.”

“Oh,” Belle said, surprised. “And has it been worth it?”

“It’s gotten me a fair share of money, I guess. It helps when times are tough.” Adam shifted and cruised his old pick-up down familiar country backroads. “You really didn’t know?”

“What, that you’d become a stripper? No!” Belle laughed and shook her head.

“Ah, I thought…” He trailed off.

“You… thought I hired you… on purpose for my bachelorette party?”

“When I saw the name I just kinda figured…”

“Adam,” Belle looked at him, brows pinching inward, “I wouldn’t have done that to you on purpose.” It only occurred to her then… what if this wasn’t hard for Adam anymore? Seeing her? Their break-up? What if she was the one stuck in the past, and she was assuming he was there with her? There was only one way to find out.

“Isn’t it hard for you to see me?”

Adam slowed the truck and pulled off the road. The gravel crunched beneath the tires and they bounced for a moment in the cab over uneven terrain before he stopped it entirely. His hand pushed the gear in park and he turned the keys, stilling the ignition. It was quiet for a few seconds.

“I don’t know what’s harder,” he said, still looking out the windshield at the fields illuminated by his truck’s headlights, “seeing you or not seeing you.”

“Adam…”

“Belle…I…” He exhaled. His thick fingers left the steering wheel, turning off the lights and pinched his low, heavy brow. “Leading up to tonight,” he started, pulling his hand away and leaning back, peering out at the moonlit road they sat besides, “I kept running over and over in my head what I’d do when I saw you. I kept rehearsing everything I wanted to tell you. You know there were a couple times I actually thought about buying a plane ticket to New York, figuring out where you lived and showing up at your doorstep?”

She could feel him looking at her, but she wasn’t brave enough to meet his eyes. Her heart was in her throat.

“Belle,” his voice cracked, soft with emotion, “Belle, look at me.”

She swallowed and turned her eyes to his. How tenderly he watched her made her want to cry. No one looked at her the way Adam did, no matter what mood he was in. She could read his heart in his expression.

“I just need to tell you, no matter if it makes you so angry you get out of this truck and try to walk back home-” she’d done that one time before when they’d fought, and he’d trailed her for half a mile, yelling at her to get back in while she raised her chin and refused to give him the time of day “-but if this is the last chance I have to say it before you’re off and married, I’m gonna say it.”

Adam reached, and gently gathered her hands in his.

“I have always loved you, Belle Foster, and I’m always gonna love you. No matter what.”

“Adam,” she sighed, trying to fight how wretchedly her heart ached, and the way that returned sentiment clung to her tongue, just begging her to find the strength to set them free. “What do I do with that?” She said instead, her shoulders dropping.

He pulled his hands away slow.

“Whatever you want to.”

Belle looked at him again, and saw the fear of rejection, the hope that she wouldn’t, the desire inspired by their closeness, and the anger that she was getting married to someone that wasn’t him. His face was so familiar and yet, age nearly made it foreign. Even his blond curls, he’d let them grow out, and the look suited him. Idly, Belle reached between them, and pinched one between her thumb and forefinger, feeling the soft texture. She scooted closer on the bench seat… and closer…

He turned toward her, and Belle leaned in until their lips brushed gently against one another, testing, curious… They pulled back just enough for their eyes to meet…

Adam’s large hands flew in opposite directions. One went to the back of her head, tangled tight in her hair, and all but pushed her mouth hard against his. The other ran down her spine, caught the zipper of her dress and yanked it open in one fluid motion. He pressed into the open material, lingered over the soft, bare skin of her back and pushed down until it could curl under her ass. He squeezed the fat there and encouraged her closer to him. His tongue slid into her mouth and his beard scratched her face as he turned his head, seeking the best angle to kiss her.

Five years of pent up passion made them wild for one another. Belle’s fingers ran down his bare chest, curling and lightly raking her nails down his skin, not enough to leave a mark but enough to make him inhale with a hard hiss once their mouths broke apart.

He didn’t linger but leaned in to litter hot kisses along her jawline and down the hollow dip of her neck. His fingers left her hair and ran down over the front of her dress, palm curling over her left breast. Memory reminded him where her nipples were, and his thumb stroked over the material before he gathered the fat and pinched it just tight enough to elicit a soft moan of pain and pleasure from her kiss-swollen lips. His hands relaxed and slipped up, pressing between her cleavage and into her dress to touch her breasts freely, no clothes obstructing him.

“Oh… Adam,” Belle sighed, eyes rolling as he suckled the sensitive skin on her neck.

The hand that’d been gripping the fat of her ass slipped around to the front, and blindly pushed at the gathered material of her dress until it could crawl under. She felt his touch move up her thighs, no patience left, fingertips squeezing beneath the elastic of her white-lace panties. With familiarity and boldness, Adam’s fingers slipped into her wet cunt, and his thumb rolled over her clit, teasing it and sending shivers of pleasure down her thighs. Belle’s fingers curled around his blond locks, and she was too busy being swept away with pleasure to worry if she was tugging too hard.

Body responding, Belle’s hips arched toward his touch, and she moaned the more his fingers flicked and rubbed and teased her clit. She knew she was getting soaked.

“Fuck,” he cursed suddenly and pulled away from where he’d been leaving red marks down her chest. His eyes met hers – they were nearly black, the pretty blue eaten to slivers as his pupils dilated – and he was breathing heavy and fast, his naked chest rising and falling with effort. “Too cramped in here,” he said.

“Do you have any blankets?”

Adam grinned and gently pushed her away so he could step outside his truck and reach behind the seat, quickly pulling folded-up blanket after folded-up blanket free. Each of them was chucked into the bed of his truck, and any time their eyes caught, they smiled at each other like they were young and dumb and in love again… not like she was supposed promised to be married to someone else, and not like she was going to be going back to New York, and not like Adam was going to be staying back here. They’d both agreed to chuck reality and morality out the window and no one was around to remind them why they shouldn’t.

Adam was quick to jump up into the bed and pile the blankets one after the other on top of one another. While he did that, Belle slipped out and came around back, leaning on the tailgate and watching him at work. When he’d finished, he bent toward her and offered his hand.

“Milady.”

“Milord,” she replied playfully, slipping her hand in his and hoisting herself up and into the bed beside him. 

Adam lowered down and laid back, reaching up to grab her hand and pull her down over the top of him, straddling him. Belle pulled the material of her dress from where it’d gathered between them, so she’d be sure once she pressed her hips down on his there was nothing between them but the very thin material of their underwear. He groaned, and his hands framed her hips, guiding the pace he wanted her to grind on him, lifting his hips to erase the space between them.

“Mmm, yeah,” he grunted, eyes rolling back, “fuck, Belle…”

He was getting hard again. This time they didn’t have to be careful in front of a group of people. This time Belle let her weight sit on him, spread over him, and ran the length of his semi-hard cock between her lips, feeling him despite the thin layers of clothing they still wore. She angled her hips so his wide, fat head would press her already teased clit, and moaned, thighs clenching tight around his hips, knees pushing down against the blankets.

“Adam,” she whined.

“Keep going darlin’,” he encouraged with a tight voice, “keep goin’ until you cum. I’m not gonna stop tonight until you’ve cum so much you can’t walk tomorrow.” He learned the pace, and understood right when he’d hit her clit, and began thrusting his hips up to make it more intense. He was getting harder, and she could feel that familiar thickness that used to stretch her enough that it was nearly painful. Nearly.

“Fuck! Adam! I’m… I’m going to!”

“Yeah Belle,” he huffed, staring up at her grinding on top of him, “cum for me, li’l darlin.”

“AhH!” She stilled and clenched tight, fingers splayed over his chest curling inward, body jerking as her thighs trembled around him. She came, soaking her panties in wet, cunt twitching on his cock.

Adam grinned up at her, lifting one hand from her hip to gently tuck her hair behind her ear. He let her wait until she’d stopped twitching, sensitive, and guided her up and off him. His hands made quick work of unbuckling the silver belt-buckle and pushing the chaps down where he kicked them off with his boots and socks. He paused before removing the little black underwear he was wearing and instead turned his attention toward her. He reached for her dress, laying near off her shoulders, and gently tugged the material down.

She hadn’t been wearing a bra, and her nipples were hard from his previous teasing. Adam’s eyes fell to them and he sighed a breath of wonder through his lips. “God damn,” he swore, “I’ve missed the sight of those.” He leaned in and began to kiss every inch of skin he revealed, as if he meant to cherish it. His fingers moved slow to peel her dress away, giving her enough time to come down from her prior high and work herself into a new, frenzied need the slower he went. Finally, the pair of them were matched, both only in their underwear, but Adam sat up and gently pushed a hand on her shoulder to guide her down until she was lying flat on her back and looking up at him.

He curled his fingers in the elastic of her panties and slid them down slow, cursing again in a whisper as his eyes fell between her legs. The blond hairs of his beard scratched her skin as he bent between her knees and began placing kisses along the sensitive skin on the inside of her legs. He kept advancing until his tongue curled and pushed between her lips, sinking inside and then up, curling and flicking her clit. He moaned into her, and the vibrations drove her wild. She arched toward him, panting, naked, squeezing his head between her thighs as he ate her into delirium. 

One hand, its palm flat on the bed of blankets, held his body upright while the other slipped between them, and two fingers sank deep inside her. He suckled and licked her clit while his fingers mimicked the way his cock would thrust inside her and stroked the inner walls of her muscles. He knew from experience it’d take a little time building her back up to a second orgasm so soon, but he didn’t seem to mind. He’d always told her she tasted better than anything he’d ever had on his tongue, and he’d happily get lockjaw if it meant spending hours between her thighs.

Some things never changed.

Belle arched her hips toward him, eyes rolled back in her head, panting, moaning, and whining his name. Her fingers curled tight into the blankets she laid on. He hummed harder and the tip of his tongue flicked over her clit more wildly, mimicking the way a vibrator would jump across it. His beard tickled her as he pressed closer.

“Oohh, oh fuck, Adam, nnng…I’mgonna…”

She locked around him. There was no helping how tightly her thighs squeezed either side of his head. She couldn’t help it if she tried. For a moment she was suspended before the crescendo, and the world seemed as still as she was, and then, all at once and with a half-choked scream, she cried and came against his warm mouth. “ADAM!” Her cry echoed around the farm fields they were parked beside. 

Adam was kind enough to lap gently with every pleasurable pulse that caught her body. Eventually, when the pleasurable shivers had stopped, he let her hips rest on the blankets and pulled his fingers from inside her before leaning back and smiling. His clean hand reached up to wipe her wet from his beard before he stuck the fingers that’d been inside her into his mouth, sucking them clean. He leaned back on his calves, between her open legs, and looked down her naked, laid-out body.

“You’re beautiful.” Astonishment in his voice.

Belle looked up him, at the soft bit of fat that lay over hard muscle and his large chest, up to his handsome face looking soft and honest down at her. The moon lit a gentle halo around his blond hair, making some strands look nearly silver. Her heart ached very suddenly, seeing him so beautiful like this, with her naked legs at either side of his thighs where he sat between them.

“I’ve missed you,” she whispered, knowing the truth was only likely to bring them more heartache, because loving someone didn’t mean everything else was magically solved. When they came away from this strange, wonderful bubble they’d captured themselves inside she’d still have to face a return to New York, her busy career, her expensive upstate apartment, and her fiancé who paid her about as much mind as one would pay a potted plant. From time to time Jonathan might catch his eye on her, and smile and tell her how wonderful she was, but his phone would vibrate, or he’d remember needing to rush off elsewhere and it’d be closed walls all over again.

With Adam… she consumed him the way he did her. Everything else fell away until it was just them, making love beneath the stars.

Hooking his fingers into the elastic of his underwear, he peeled them away and settled between her legs again. Gently, he pushed at the inside of her knees and encouraged her legs to spread before hooking his arms under her thighs and pulling her toward him. The throbbing head of his leaking cock ran between her wet lips and made him grunt, nostrils flaring and body momentarily stiffening. His fingers curled hard into the fat on her thighs, and then he exhaled and opened his eyes on her. He lowered atop her, warm, and she felt his cock pry where she was sticky and wet. Her muscles clenched in anticipation, ready to squeeze tight around him.

“I’ve missed you too,” he breathed in her ear, pressed his lips against her temple, and sank just an inch of his cock barely inside her. “Fuck, Belle…” He pressed the side of his head against hers and his breath stirred her hair. “I don’t have a condom on me, but I… I need you.”

When they were young and stupid they sometimes fucked without on the promise he’d pull out. Now, as adults, they knew better. Then again… did they, really? She was engaged to another man, and the history between them wouldn’t be enough to excuse them for what they were doing now. What they were doing was wrong, but neither of them wanted to think about that. Belle certainly didn’t want a reality check. Not now. Not with the man she’d loved her whole life poised over the top of her, ready to make love to her, with a blanket of twinkling stars shining up above him. Not when she finally felt alive, and like things made sense, despite how wrong this all was and how horrible she should feel.

She couldn’t feel badly about anything when she was with him like this. Honest. Vulnerable. Desperate.

“I don’t care,” she said, and swallowed back the guilt, “I need you Adam.”

It only occurred to her now how lonely she’d been these last few years. She’d felt like she was living life as a ghost of sorts, detached from who she was at her core. As much as she’d wanted to belong in the city, she never felt as alive as she did now. Underneath Adam, poised to make love, the stars above them… Belle felt like she’d finally just come up for air.

Adam slowly sank his cock inside her. Inch by inch, he restrained himself and forced it as slow as possible, as if he wanted to draw out the sensation of what it felt like to be inside her again. A low moan poured out of his open mouth, and Belle, arching toward him, responded with one of her own. Adam knew better than to immediately push all of himself inside – the girls may have been joking when they asked how hung the hangman was, but Belle knew they’d have been impressed to know the truth – and only sank part-ways before easing back and sinking in again.

Propping his weight on one hand, he used the other to gently pinch her chin. Their eyes locked as he pushed in, and shoved a little harder with his hips, making her moan louder. He went deeper with every stroke now, building them as they exchanged hot, panting breaths, moans, and utterances of each other’s names. Adam let his fingers slip away from her chin and run down her body, his calloused, rough fingers rolling her nipple before he bent and swirled the flat of his tongue across it. He spent equal time on both her breasts, kissing and suckling, rolling her nipples between her teeth and pinching just hard enough to make her moan a little louder.

Every thrust of his thick, hard cock ran against that special little spot that most men didn’t understand how to hit. Adam knew just how to hold her hips up, and how to dip his and thrust just right so that Belle’s toes curled, and her moans became needy cries with every hit, gratification like electricity run through her veins.

“Oh fuck, Adam,” Belle’s eyes rolled and her mouth, lips swollen from their passionate kisses, hung wide open. She couldn’t believe she was building toward another orgasm already.

“Yeah,” he grunted, panting over her, eyes leaving her face to look down between them where his hips pushed into hers and made the fat on her body ripple. Sweat trickled down his front and stuck strands of his blond curls to his face. Belle could feel how wet she was, smeared on their thighs the more he fucked her. When was the last time sex had been this good?

It wasn’t just the sex, but the emotions, too. Meeting his eyes, watching the way his jaw clenched and his eyes rolled as he hit a particularly good thrust, or the way he met her gaze and held there, like he wanted to burn her memory into his mind, so he’d never lose it… all of it was almost too much, but she’d never want anything less.

Adam thrusted harder, jaw clenched as he pumped inside her. Belle should have worried he was too lost in their tryst, like she was, and that he wouldn’t pull out. But maybe subconsciously, she didn’t want him to. Maybe he didn’t either. Rather than say anything, Belle screamed his name and arched her hips into his thrusts, building closer and closer yet. Adam shifted, pulling himself upright and running his hands down the curve of her body before they settled on her waist. He was up on his knees between her legs again, and he picked up her hips, resting her weight in her shoulders. Never did his thrusts slow, but as he lifted her up to take the impact of his cock, he started to go faster.

“ADAM!” Belle cried again that night, and her body seized tight around him before she came, and her thighs jerked and twitched.

“Nng-Belle-I’mgonna-” He barely managed, with a thin voice ready to snap, to say those words before he pushed her hips down hard against the blankets and pinned her there. Thrust up as deep as he could inside her, Adam’s body jerked, and his fingers curled almost painfully hard into the fat of her hips. He couldn’t help it, lost in the ecstasy of their shared orgasm, in the same way she couldn’t help but twitch and quiver around him. She felt the heat of his cum inside her. He pulled his cock back slow and pushed in again, drawing out the last few seconds of their joined orgasm.

Then, when they could finally breathe, he all but collapsed on top of her and shifted his weight so he wouldn’t smother her beneath his warm, sweat-sticky body. They lay in quiet for a minute, looking up at the night sky. His hand gently ran up and down her arm, and he leaned to press a kiss against her bare shoulder blade. The fog of their shared gratification began to dissipate, leaving them with the realities that were harder to face.

“What now?” Belle asked, her voice small.

“Hm,” Adam grunted, and pushed some of his blond curls out of his face. “I could go for a burger.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she couldn’t help but laugh, though, and when her eyes found his she saw he was grinning.

Their smiles slowly slipped away, and it left them staring at one another.

“You could always come home,” Adam said, and the hope in his eyes was near enough to break her heart all over again.

“You’ve really never stopped loving me after all this time?” Belle asked, gaze searching his, waiting to see even a flicker of doubt. 

None came.

“Never.” Adam confessed, and grabbed one of her hands with his own, bringing it up to press his lips against her knuckles. “You?” She saw that same searching, worried look.

“Never.” She admitted.

He visibly relaxed.

“I tried to stop,” he said after a minute, and when Belle looked at him, saw his gaze was far-off and distracted. He was seeing the past. “I tried to stop loving you. After awhile it was easier to pretend like you’d never existed, but then I’d see something, and I’d start remembering what’d happened there with us and before I knew it…” he trailed off. His eyes, heavy with the honesty he was unburdening, moved up to hers. “Was it easier at least, being in New York?”

“Yes,” she confessed at first, and then frowned and shook her head, “and no. It’s different and busy enough that it provides plenty of distractions, but there’s lots of times I felt lost and alone, too. I’d catch myself tossing and turning in bed, and when I went out on my balcony, hated everything different about it. I never understood how a place could be so excitingly different and so upsettingly foreign.”

Belle had never been able to talk to anyone the way she could talk to Adam. His fingers ran gently down her bare spine, comfortingly touching her even as they lay, naked and tangled beneath the country night sky. How many times had they been here before?

“We always made a good team.” Adam concluded.

“Yeah, we always did.”

The somber truth, which was never far from their conversation, lay in quiet, heavy weight across them again. Adam braced his hand on her hip and slowly eased himself from inside her to start gathering their clothes scattered around the truck bed. He handed hers first and pulled on his tiny black underwear. Despite the very real thing they’d just done and the unanswered questions weighing down, Belle couldn’t help but grin again and shake her head at him.

“What?” He asked, glancing down his front and looking back up at her.

“You… this… I never would have thought you’d turn to stripping. Did you pick out the outfit?”

He’d folded up his chaps in his hand, and glanced at the silver, swirling design that was sewn with a glittering thread meant to catch light and shimmer brightly. “I did, actually,” he said, and grinned as he looked up at her. “Cowboy shit.”

Belle laughed.

“I saw the way you looked at me when I walked in that room,” Adam teased. “You were into it.”

With how cocky he was grinning at her, Belle wanted to lie and tell him she wasn’t. He’d know, though. She glanced around them, where the blankets were rucked up from how their bodies moved as they made love.

“I think it’s pretty fair to say I was into it.”

“Next time I’ll show you the routine where I use my bandanna a little more…”

“And how does one use a bandanna, exactly?” Belle arched a brow, and even though she was happily exhausted, couldn’t deny the excitement that raced like a thrill through her body.

“There’s lots of ways,” Adam replied nonchalantly, reaching out to gently stroke her wrist with his calloused thumb, “I can use it to tie your wrists together… or even as a blindfold…”

“Well then,” Belle tried to keep her voice level, and tried not to think about everything that’d entail, which was hard when he was sitting so close to her, still in just his underwear. “I look forward to the next show, hangman.”

“Does that mean…” He was looking at her, waiting.

“I don’t know what it means,” Belle admitted, “but I’ll tell you what I do know. I don’t know if I can take another five years of not seeing you. Hell, I don’t even know if I can take another day. I have some… things… to take care of and it won’t be overnight…”

Adam reached between them and gathered her hands. “I can be patient.”

“I still have a few months left on my apartment lease, and I’d have to see what kind of jobs there are in commuting distance…”

“You’re not going to scare me off, Foster.”

“You mean that?” Belle watched him carefully. “Last time we tried long distance…”

“Last time we tried long distance I was a twenty-two-year-old boy who thought he was a man, and I feared losing you so badly that I acted like an idiot and lost you anyways. I’ve thought a lot over these last five years, Belle, and I know where I went wrong, and I swear I won’t ever do that again.”

“It wasn’t just you,” Belle said, shaking her head at him. “I was unwilling to compromise too. I thought I needed to be away from this place and everything that reminded me of it, you included. But… you’re my home, Adam. You always have been. Not New York or Paris or Tokyo or wherever else I could wind up… my home is wherever you are.”

He couldn’t hide what her words did to him. The gentle, happy expression across his face made her unable to resist leaning in to press a kiss to his mouth, slow and sweet, before she pulled away again.

“What’s your opinion on the stripping?”

Belle hadn’t been expecting the question. She laughed, then shrugged. “Actually, I like it. There’s something… fun about watching other women go crazy for you, but knowing you’re coming home to me afterwards.”

Adam grinned.

“When does the strip-tour start with your buddy’s business?”

“Actually,” Adam laughed, “pretty soon. My dad’s been doing alright, and I’ll only be away for a few days. I think Cody told me the next show they want to get me in on is in a month and a half or so, out in California.” He paused, regarding her. “Wanna come? I have a few new moves I plan to reveal… and I could use a willing participant to practice on leading up to the show…”

Belle grinned ear-to-ear.

“You’re so on, cowboy.”


End file.
